Sun Java™ System RFID Software 3.0 Release Notes

This section of these Release Notes ...

Provides this information ...

A. What's New

New features and enhancements.

B. System Requirements, Platforms, and Supported Software

Hardware requirements needed, supported Operating systems and application servers, browsers, and other software that are required or supported by this release.

C. Known Issues

Bugs and Issues related to functionality in this release of the product, with workarounds where applicable.

D. Installation Notes

Addendum to any installation procedures.

Sun Microsystems is announcing Sun Java System RFID Software v3.0.

The Sun Java System RFID Software software consists of the following three components:
1. The Sun Java System RFID Event Manager
2. The Sun Java System RFID Information Server
3. The Sun Java System RFID Management Console

Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) infrastructure software is fundamental to every customer RFID deployment or solution. This software enables the management of essential RFID hardware such as RFID tags and readers, and helps filter out and make sense of the RFID data received from tags before enabling integration of the data with back-end enterprise information systems.

This release introduces new Java and Web Service APIs
to access RFID devices. It also exposes the Java APIs to create new
Filters and Connectors, as well as extends the Information Server API.
In addition, it introduces out-of-the box connectivity with the SAP's
AutoID Infrastructure (SAP AII), and adds support for new RFID devices,
support for Windows 2003 Advanced Server is added.

A. What's New

Changes from the Previous Release
The following new features are included in the third release of the Sun Java System RFID Software:

  1. New APIs
    1. Java library exposing reader/printer functionality that hides unnecessary Jini plumbing.
    2. WebService exposing reader/printer functionality.
    3. API to implement third party filters and connectors.
    4. New EPCIS APIs exposing Product, Unit, Customer, Shipping, and Tag Allocation functionality.
  2. Integration to SAP AutoID Infrastructure (AII)
  3. Information Server Performance Improvements
  4. Management Console
    1. Multi-user support
    2. Filtering of Alerts
  5. New Device Support
    1. Feig LRU 1000
    2. Symbol 9000-G handheld
    3. Intermec IF5
  6. New Platform Support
    1. Windows 2003 Advanced Server
    2. J2ME CDC 1.1 (available separately - contact Sun RFID engineering)
    3. Oracle 9i (support for Oracle 8 is dropped)
    4. Postgres 8.0.4 (support for Postgres 7.4 is dropped)

Standards:
- Gen 2 enabled to support EPCglobal Generation 2 readers and tags
- Support for EPCglobal ALE (Application Level Events) specifications
- EPC Tag Data Spec 1.1
- EPCglobal ALE (Application Level Events)
- JMS
- JMX
- SNMP

Tag Commissioning:
- Tag management API to manage the commissioning of tags

Tag Support:
- Supports read/write enabled tags
- Support for user accessible memory
- EPC and ISO tags
- EPC and CAGE data formats

Reporting:
- Tag and Reader reports

Platforms:
- Solaris 9, 10; x86/Sparc
- Redhat ES 3.0
- Windows 2003 Advanced Server

Servers:
- Sun AS 8.1
- PostgreSQL 8.0.4
- Oracle 9i
- Oracle 10g

Languages:
- English

B. System Requirements, Platforms, and Supported Software

The following platforms and operating systems are required for this release of Sun Java System RFID Software.

Platform

Operating System

SPARC

Solaris™ 9 & 10 Operating System (Solaris OS), SPARC(R)

X86

Solaris™ 9 & 10 Operating System (Solaris OS), x86

Linux

Redhat ES 3.0
Windows Windows 2003 Advanced Server

The following application servers are supported by the RFID Software

Application Servers

Sun Java System Application Server Enterprise Edition 8.1 2005Q2
Sun Java System Application Server Platform Edition 8.1 2005Q2 UR2
BEA WebLogic Server 8.1 SP4 *

*Note: Information Server Only

The following databases are supported by the RFID Software

Databases

Oracle Database 9i

Oracle Database 10g

PostgreSQL 8.0.4

Supported Readers

Alien ALR-9780
Alien NanoScanner 915MHz
AWID MPR-2010
FEIG Electronic ID ISC.MR100
FEIG Electronic ID ISC.PR100
FEIG LRU 1000
Intermec IFt5
Matrics AR-400
Matric RDR-001
Printronix SmartLine SL5000e RFID Smart Label Printers
SAMSys MP9320 EPC V2.7 Reader
Sensormatic SensorID Agile 2 Reader
Symbol MC9000-G Handheld Reader
ThingMagic Mercury4 Reader
ThingMagic Mercury 3 Reader
Zebra Technologies R110XiIIIPlus

Platform Requirements

The Sun Java System RFID Software Event Manager, Information Server, and Management Console have the following platform requirements:

Sun Java System RFID Software Event Manager

Sun Java System RFID Software Information Server

Sun Java System RFID Software Management Console

C. Known Issues

MQ Broker Default Port Limitation
The Information Server requires the MQ Broker to use the default port 7676. If you deploy the Information Server on a bundled Solaris 9 or Solaris 10 Appserver, you will need to configure the bundled MQ Broker to use port 7676." The unbundled Sun Java System Appservers already use port 7676 as default.

Debugging the Event Manager
If you have started the Event Manager but your services do not appear to be running and there is no indication as to why in the log files, please turn up the logging level of the Rio Monitor and Rio Cybernode as follows:

Modify the following files:
Linux: /etc/opt/sun/rfidem/system/logging-station.properties
Linux: /etc/opt/sun/rfidem/system/logging-agent.properties

Solaris: /etc/opt/SUNWrfid/system/logging-station.properties
Solaris: /etc/opt/SUNWrfid/system/logging-agent.properties

Windows: C:\Program Files\Sun\RFID Software\rfidem\etc\system\logging-station.properties
Windows: C:\Program Files\Sun\RFID Software\rfidem\etc\system\logging-agent.properties

Change the following two lines in both files to be:
org.jini.rio.cybernode.level = FINEST
org.jini.rio.monitor.level = FINEST

Login Not Being Displayed on AS8.1 EE
From AS Admin Console -> Configurations -> default-config -> Web Container -> Session Properties, set Session Timeout to non-null.

Startup Script on Linux
Startup Script for Linux requires that users make sure that the correct multicast is set prior to the startup script being called in the system. The startup script is located in /etc/rc5.d/S91rfidStation and
/etc/rc5.d/S92rfidAgent. Multicast is set by running the following command:

route add -net 224.0.0.0 netmask 240.0.0.0 dev eth0

PostgreSQL pg_hba.conf
When the MC and IS connect to the PostgreSQL database server, they need to authenticate to PostgreSQL. PostgreSQL's client authentication is controlled by the file pg_hba.conf in the data directory, e.g., /var/lib/pgsql/data/pg_hba.conf. (HBA stands for host-based authentication.) A default pg_hba.conf file is installed when the data directory is initialized by initdb. However, the default setup does not allow the MC and IS to connect to PostgreSQL remotely. Therefore, you need to add the following entries in the pg_hba.conf file for MC and IS respectively. (Please change the database name and user name accordingly.)

[TYPE] [DATABASE] [USER] [IP-ADDRES] [IP-MASK] [METHOD]
host rfidmgmtdb rfidmgmt [ip-address] [ip-mask] password
host epcis epcis [ip-address] [ip-mask] password

Please refer to the Chapter 19 "CLient Authentication" of PostgreSQL 7.4 manual for details.

Information Server Username
The default username for the Information Server is tester. You may choose to use a different username when creating that user. However, you also need to add that username in the group called, modifier.

EPCIS Database Schema
The new database schema for the EPCIS v.3.0 is not compatible with the previous releases of the RFID Software. Refer to the Sun Java System RFID Software 3.0 Installation Guide for details on upgrading the database schema.

JMS Configuration for Weblogic 8.1 Users
* For BEA Weblogic 8.1, the user needs to configure a TemporaryTemplate manually and here is how:

- On Weblogic Console:
* Select JMS->Templates
* Click "Configure a new JMS Template..."
* Enter "EpcisJMSTemplate" in the Name field
* Click Create button
* Click Apply button
* Select JMS->Servers->EPCISJMSServer
* At "Temporary Template" field, pull down the list and
select "EpcisJMSTemplate"
* Click Apply button
* Restart Weblogic

Running Jasper Reports on Windows using BEA Weblogic 8.1
* When running the information server on BEA Weblogic 8.1, Jasper reports will not run if BEA is not installed in its default location.

SMF Management on Solaris 10
* When SMF is activated on Solaris 10, user is to utilize the startall and stopall scripts to manage SMF services and to not use the svcadm utilities to control SMF on the system.

RFID Toolkit Codebase Update
The following lines needs to be updated to the ReaderClient sample code to allow access to the data:

if (System.getProperty("java.rmi.server.codebase") == null) {
System.setProperty("java.rmi.server.codebase", "http://localhost:52493/sdm-dl.jar");
}

Please also update the Sun Application server.policy to have permissions for Jini and RFID related operations.

Patch Update
Patch ID 119189-03 will be installed on the solaris platform after installation that is required for ALE to properly work on the system.

D. Installation Notes

Displaying the Tag Viewer
The EPC Viewer does not automatically display when you execute the startall script. Run the script $RFID_INSTALL_DIR/bin/tagviewer at the command line to display this GUI.

Deploying Database Scripts Locally (Oracle/Postgres)
When deploying database scripts locally on your system, make sure that Oracle 9i/10g or Postgres 8.0.4 is running in your system. The default user admin for the Oracle database is oracle and for Postgres is postgres. When trying to deploy the oracle scripts locally, please take note of the following:

ORACLE_HOME and ORACLE_SID are needed to locate the path of the database. In some cases, the oracle home does not have the oradata subdirectory it. Therefore you would need to specify the path of the directory where it resides if it is different from the default ORACLE_HOME. Otherwise the database deployment on your local system will fail.

These scripts are meant to run on Linux and Solaris only.